In a news release, Rob Sullivan, managing director for strategy and distribution at Bell Asset, said the Energy Super mandate was "indicative of a strengthening pivot toward quality-focused asset management approaches that have shown to be more resilient in volatile markets."

The news release said Bell's global smidcap equities strategy outperformed the MSCI World SMID Cap index, in Australian-dollar terms, by 9.6% for the 12 months through Oct. 31 — a period that saw the Australian currency weaken by roughly 6% against the U.S. dollar.